Who judges the Mercury prize?

Speech Debelle ... Find out who gave her twenty grand. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on this year's Mercury prize. For every "good on you, Speech!" there's a "who cares what a room full of so-called experts thinks anyway?" According to NME's James MacMahon: "There's no mention of what qualifies any of the names on the list (of judges) to pass comment on a record's worth, or even what the process is that precedes the point where Holland says 'and the winner is ...'" In fact, there's no official mention of who the judges actually are. So MacMahon has decided to out them. Here's who he lists:

Janice LongFormer BBC Radio 1 DJ, now of Radio 2

Charles HazlewoodNoted British classical music conductor

Jude RogersGuardian music columnist

Arwa Haider Metro newspaper music critic

George ErgatoudisHead of Music, BBC Radio 1

Conor McNicholasFormer editor of NME. Now editor of Top Gear magazine

Mike FlynnJazz editor, Time Out magazine

John KennedyDJ and presenter of X-Posure new music show on XFM

Mark FindlayHead of Music, Global Radio

Dean JacksonDJ BBC Radio Nottingham

While we're sure this won't affect anyone's opinion on the results of this year's prize one way or another, it does beg the question: why the secrecy in the first place?

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